Let me see your war face!

I’m sure many of you folks visiting this website have come across the movie “Full Metal Jacket” at some point or another. If you haven’t, you should check it out. It’s a look at the Vietnam war from the perspective of a freshly recruited marine who doesn’t particularly want to be there, and the dehumanising effect it has on his fellow marines.

Anyway, the plot of the movie has nothing to do with the project, there’s no political or moral statement here, and certainly not over a war that happened 40 years ago. This project is based around one particule scene in the movie. This one…

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Shortly after having shaved her head for a music video, I had the opportunity to once again work with the wonderful Collette Von Tora. It was a nice easy going day, and we had a decent amount of time left over to experiment and try out some different ideas and lighting setups after we’d got the images we initially set out to capture.

One of those images was this one on the right, which sparked the idea for this project. After speaking about my idea to a few friends and other photographers they all agreed that it seemed like a pretty cool project, and several of them have actually volunteered to be in it (Thanks guys!).

Over the course of the next year or so, I will be shooting as many people as possible showing me their war faces. It’s a great study of expression and how different people see themselves expressing the same emotion or idea.

I have a few ideas in mind for the future of this project, but in the interests of not counting my chickens, I’ll keep them to myself for now until the project starts to take a bit more form.

I am looking for all types of subjects to participate in this project, regardless of sex, race, ethnicity, age (as long as it’s 18+), height, weight, tattoos, piercings, facial hair, extra heads (so if Zaphod Beeblebrox wishes to apply, he may), whatever you look like, it doesn’t matter!

If you’re interested in getting involved in this project, please contact me to arrange a shoot. If you’re not in the Lancaster area (or relatively close), let me know. I have a few trips planned around the UK during 2012, so I may be coming near you. If I get enough interest from a particular area, I can always plan extra trips!